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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

If you own an iPhone (sorry Android lovers, but it’s supposedly in the works) then chances are you’ve played, watched someone play, borrowed someone’s phone and played, heard of, or seen a passing mention of, the game Temple Run.

This is a contradiction of terms. Trust me.

Temple Run is incredibly popular, incredibly addictive, and incredibly frustrating, especially if you happen to be that guy who has completed all the accomplishments EXCEPT joining the ten million point club. I’m not saying that’s me, but…okay, well yeah it’s me, and I’m still pissed.

Work, school, a wife, kids, bills due, tax season, saving to buy a house...and THIS is what stresses me out the most.

But that’s not what this is about. This post is about what your Temple Run character says about you. We each have our favorite, and if you look real close, who you use might just tell you something about yourself you didn’t know. So let’s dive into the realms of personal psychology, shall we?

Guy Dangerous:

Guy Dangerous is the default character and “Just your average explorer.” If you use Guy, there’s a good chance that you’re a Temple Run rookie, and you’ll move on to greener pastures later on in the game. If you are still using Guy after unlocking other characters, then you have an unwillingness to change. You are a stable and stoic person, not prone to mood swings, and are more than likely a staunch member of the deacon board at your local Baptist church. You probably have a Nintendo laying around that you play religiously, and you scoff at anyone who owns any game system with more bits than a SNES. You listen to whatever music was popular the year you turned thirteen, and if you aren’t thirteen yet then you probably listen to your parent’s old Nirvana CDs. If you are old enough to have a love life, it probably reaches its peak every Tuesday at 9:00 PM, because that’s when it has always happened. You’ve never left the country, and you probably would vote for a fence on the USA/Mexico border. You’ve eaten the same breakfast every day for the last ten years and probably carry a pocket planner.

Scarlett Fox:

If you’re using Scarlett Fox, you probably have trouble starting a savings account, or you have a redhead fetish. You’ve never been at a job longer than six months, and you probably stopped playing Temple Run right after you unlocked her because it cost you all your coins and you couldn’t bear the thought of saving them up again. If you are a guy, you picked her over Barry Bones because she’s a chick and you thought playing with a burly black dude would be gay. If you’re a girl, you picked her because, “my friends say she looks like me,” even though you probably don’t have red hair or her figure. If you’re a prepubescent boy who steals his mom’s phone to play, then you pick her because you don’t really have a thing for Asian chicks yet, which means your mom probably doesn’t trust you on the Internet. Scarlett Fox is the safest pick of the “cheap” characters to avoid any awkward social situations.

Barry Bones:

You’re probably not a police officer, but chances are you’re a security guard somewhere that isn’t allowed to have a gun on duty and hangs out with a lot of real cops on the weekends. You’re probably more of a basketball fan, or you feel like Barry’s lack of football cleats give him a strategic advantage while running on slippery temple surfaces. You probably have about nineteen thousand coins saved up to buy the Asian chick, and you probably are over the age of twenty. If you’re a white male and you use Barry, you’re more than likely a closet racist who uses him just in case one of your three black friends pick up your phone to play a game. You’re not fooling your three black friends. You’re also probably a Democrat, but you’re going to vote for someone else in the next presidential election. Most women will use this character.

Karma Lee:

You are probably the type that stays up late watching infomercials and buying things like the “Super Awesome Chamois Whammy Deluxe” and the “Amazing Fast Cooker Roaster Oven Induction Broiler” because, by God, how do they do it so cheap? You more than likely passed on the first three “cheap” characters, saying to your friends, “I know I could buy two of the others, but this is the faster player on the game!” You’re probably older than twenty five, a male, and you’ve probably been married for longer than five years, and you probably have at least two kids and your love life is really suffering. This is the closest you can get to an affair without your wife getting suspicious, so you lock yourself in the bathroom and make Karma Lee jump a lot. You also probably got that joke without having to play the game to make her jump. You have a 401k, good health insurance, and a five year plan, but you can’t shake that infomercial habit, and you probably read a lot of manga.

Montana Smith:

You’re able to quote every movie line that’s ever come out of the mouth of Harrison Ford. You liked Star Wars, but probably not as much as Star Trek, and you’re a snappy dresser. You prefer beer to wine, even if you’re a woman. You have a terrible habit of trying to keep things in order, and more than likely have an OCD problem that hasn’t been diagnosed because you “don’t trust doctors and hate pills.” When someone asks you what your favorite holiday is, you never say Christmas because that’s expected, so you say “My birthday.” You have a collection of something that your significant other hates and has been begging you to get rid of for years. Your friends see you as the person they want to go out with them because you might do something entertaining and wind up in jail, but you won’t be mad if no one bails you out. Man or woman, your hair is cut short. Your dream job is to be an astronaut.

Francisco Montoya:

You probably have long hair and wear thick-framed glasses. You live in Seattle, or a place that’s called “little Seattle,” and not in a loving way. You prefer Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and you listen to music no one has ever heard of. One in five million users of Francisco will actually be a geography buff. You use a lot of gel in your hair, and you’re a liberal who is voting for Ron Paul because no one else will. Your friends all use Francisco, but they won’t ever show you their phones, and they all claim to be using someone else. You drink a lot of coffee, and are probably very skinny and wear clothes from thrift stores, but only “clean” ones. You have pierced ears, but stopped wearing earrings a long time ago and instead pierced something you hadn’t seen anyone else pierce. You have a lot of forearm tattoos and yell at people in job interviews when they ask you if you’d wear a long-sleeved shirt to cover them up. If this isn’t you, then you’re one Portlandiaepisode away from being this person. You claim you can taste the difference between free-range and “tortured” chicken.

Zack Wonder:

You probably yell a lot, and still think high fiving is cool. You played football in high school, you were terrible, and you moved to a new state and told people how awesome you were. You drink heavily at work lunches, and always try to get everyone else to join you. If you’re under the legal drinking age, then you probably yell at your parents a lot and call them stupid. You probably have your own iPhone, iPad, and iPod, as well as a substantial inheritance coming your way when someone dies. You have fifteen hundred friends on Facebook, but if someone asks you when you last logged on you punch them in the arm just a little too hard and laugh about how lame they are. Society labels you a bully, but your parents insist on telling everyone that it’s just a phase, no matter if you’re thirteen or thirty. You call women “chicks,” and at some point you have worked or will work at either Banana Republic, Hollister, or A&F. You have a gym membership and are on a first name basis with the staff there, as well as the guy that sells steroids. Your whole life revolves around your letter jacket. There is no way you’re a woman, but in ten years you’ll tell your therapist you like to wear women’s clothing around your apartment. You hate all the other characters and yell at the people who use them. You’ve thrown your phone at least once because of the game.

So there you have it, folks. The ultimate dissertation of what your Temple Run character says about your personality. These are, of course, only generalized assumptions, and are in no way meant to be construed as sound psychological advice. But hey, I probably got real close, didn’t I?

I'm a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. I teach English and Literature to the youth of today. I love Jesus and my mother, and I'll gladly introduce you to both. I love photography and writing. Duke basketball keeps me occupied for half the year, and hating Chapel Hill keeps me busy the other half. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I like stories. I'm a big guy with a big voice, trying desperately to be heard by someone before The Lord takes me home. Let's be best friends.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

You know I’m a big guy, jolly, quick to laugh, resilient, and hard to put in a bad mood.

For those that know me very well, YOU know that as quick as I am to laugh, I’m almost as quick to cry. That’s right folks, I may or may not have the emotional hardwiring of a pre-pubescent girl about to start her first…well…ahem…THINGY.

I am absolutely certain that this will come in handy should I ever pursue my dream job of being a character actor in a soap opera who always has someone close to him die. In the meantime though, it can be quiet inconvenient, as well as terrifying for those who don’t know me and see this big jowly face start to crumble and start leaking.

I do know that ladies “love a sensitive guy,” but I’m pretty sure The Missus is tired of the fact that anytime we go and see a romantic movie, I’m the one who needs the tissues instead of her. So I really work on it in public places, such as movie theaters. The other night, we went to see The Vow, we stood in line for 25 minutes, joked with a cop about how stupid teenagers can be, and headed into a theater packed with 15 year old girls checking Facebook every two minutes and hoping to get a look at Channing Tatum’s backside (which they did).

As an aside, I’m sick of getting shortchanged on the butt/boobs tradeoff in PG-13 movies. If I have to see all these butts, I should definitely be getting more than a side boob shot in a love-making scene. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s how I feel. Maybe I should email the MPAA.

Anyway, we’re in the theater, the hormones are almost tangible, cloying the air like a bad perfume, and the movie gets sad. I did sort of a quick huff, you know what I’m talking about, that little intake of air when you’re trying not to cry. The Missus just stared at me, but I held strong.

Now, I’ve told you all of that to tell you this.

Meet Fabulous Sloat.

"Excuse me, I think I said no photographs."

Fabulous is my two pound Pomeranian.

About three months ago, I looked at my wife and children and made a family decision with absolutely no input from anyone else. I said, “FAMILY!” That’s how I address them, I just yell FAMILY real loud. “FAMILY! We are going to get a dog today.” The kids didn’t know what to do, and The Missus just said, “You aren’t spending any money, we’re broke.” I didn’t really listen to her, because she’s started telling me that at least once every four hours. So we went forth, and we got a dog. I paid fifty bucks for her, which doesn’t bother me too much, but it turns out she’s been a shade more expensive than I anticipated.

About a week after we got her, she took a flying kamikaze leap off of my recliner to try and attack the kids as they walked through the door. That resulted in this:

That set us back about fifty dollars. But that’s fine, for some reason, I love this dog. No idea why, because I haven’t truly loved a dog since my black lab Lizzie died.

Fast forward to Sunday morning, a couple of days ago. Fabulous is walking down the hallway, sits down, and immediately starts yelping like someone is beating her with a bag of oranges. God-awful sounds, and heart wrenching at that. So I immediately called the vet and we start trying to find out what could be wrong. Of course the vet has no idea how to diagnose yelping over the phone, so I have to take her in. On a Sunday. For an emergency visit. Which is not cheap.

Again, this little diva of a dog is costing me big.

So I fix her up a little basket with a blanket to drive her over there in, and I take her inside the office, and the vet starts looking at her. She starts listing things that could be wrong, the last of which is “a neck injury.”

Then…something dumb happened.

The vet looks at me solemnly and says the following.

"If she's ready to go home later this afternoon, we'll give you a call."

Go home.

GO HOME.

GO HOME.

So I started crying. Just these huge alligator tears, followed by me trying to talk about how it doesn’t seem that bad, and why her, and how life isn’t fair, and how I love her, and how I really need to go because I’m teaching the old folks at the nursing home in twenty minutes.

And this vet, God love her, she took a step back, and this absolutely horrified look crosses her face, like I’ve just insulted her mother or called her fat.

And she says, “Travis, no, no, I mean, go home. Like, you will be able to take her home.”

Oh.

Well, this has certainly gotten awkward.

So I handed over the dog, and as it turns out, she had just broken a tooth. Something worth crying over? Well that depends on who you are. But as for me, my eyes are dry as a stone.

And I am hereby declaring that from this day forward, I will strike the phrasing “going home” as a euphemism for death from my vocabulary. It’s got to go, that’s real talk.

I'm a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. I teach English and Literature to the youth of today. I love Jesus and my mother, and I'll gladly introduce you to both. I love photography and writing. Duke basketball keeps me occupied for half the year, and hating Chapel Hill keeps me busy the other half. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I like stories. I'm a big guy with a big voice, trying desperately to be heard by someone before The Lord takes me home. Let's be best friends.

Monday, February 6, 2012

This morning I sat down to type out a blog, and I thought, “Dang, I don’t really have any material. I wish the kids would do something funny or stupid.” Then I immediately asked forgiveness for that thought, knowing full well it would come to fruition just because I’d wished it. So I settled into work and forgot about the blog.

On my lunch break, I went to get my hair cut. I decided to go a little shorter than I normally do, and I told Alicia that I’m considering trying to pull off the John Travolta “From Paris with Love” look. I really think I could rock the bald head and goatee look, and I’d like to try it out.

I can do this. Minus the earring. And the sex appeal. Oh, and the scarf.

She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no either, so there’s a chance.

So I’m now done with the haircut and decide to go get Chinese for lunch. When I walk in, I’m seated next to a gentleman who is…rocking the bald head and goatee look. I’m telling you, it’s a sign from God. Anyway, apart from being a divine symbol encouraging me to rid myself of these reddish blonde locks that alight my lumpy head, this guy wasn’t the interesting person in his party. It was his sidekick.

This guy had THE BEST stories I have ever heard. He opened with a story about how his cousin had lifted a six foot four guy in the air with one arm until he peed on himself. Then he moved straight into a story about how his uncle was in Folsom prison with Merle Haggard. I have since searched the Wiki on Merle, and it said he was in San Quentin, but who am I to call this ol’ boy a liar? After telling about the imprisonment of his wayward uncle, GOB, (Good ol Boy) regaled his table with a story of how he played with some kids for forty five minutes by himself one time before someone told him they’d been molested before. Then he moved straight into a life lesson for the young man at the table, explaining that “men are designed to get angry, but they aren’t allowed to show it anymore, and most of us just die inside cause of that.” Then he enlightened his co-worker with the knowledge about ATM fees from Bank of America, saying, “Two dollars is two dollars!” He closed by asking his ride if he could swing him by the “Wall D Mart,” which triggered the mental image below.

*insert long monologue about how K-Mart is the mart who lived...come to die*

After they left their table, I got up wondering how my day could get anymore interesting. I mean, so far I’d had a decent haircut, a sign from God, and I’d been held rapt with the cunning linguistic stylings of the Bard of the New China Buffet.

But there was more.

You see, yesterday, my wonderful Duke Blue Devils got beat by the Miami Hurricanes. It was a terrible and completely preventable loss, and it pretty much ruined my day.

Well, as I’m leaving the Chinese restaurant, I happen to notice that they have a vending machine that sells mini plastic college logo basketballs. I look closer, and lo and behold, they advertise there are Duke balls in that machine. So I start looking around the machine, prepared to spend any amount of money needed to fish a Duke ball out of there. I searched and searched, but they were all out of Duke University basketballs. Booooooooo. Not the way I want to start Rivalry Week.

I walk out the front door, and I see a kid throw the tiny plastic basketball he just got out into the parking lot. The mom looked very frustrated, and she did not move to get the ball, which was now rolling into the road. The kid is crying, and I’m thinking, “The kid’s a douche, he shouldn’t get that ball anyway, he needs to learn not to throw stuff.” Then I think, “Wait, our Sunday School lesson yesterday was about helping people. Maybe God wants me to help this kid, after all he did give me the bald hair goatee sign earlier.”

So I amble out to the road to pick this thing up, and I look at the mom and say, “I got it.” She thanks me and waits. I get to the ball, bend over, pick it up, flip it around to see the logo, and…

Boom. In my face.

After all that took place, I just KNEW my fortune cookie was going to have the kind of wisdom in it that can explain these things. Something like, “Hurricanes will make you bald, but they will leave your facial hair to capture the stories of men in overalls.”

I'm a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. I teach English and Literature to the youth of today. I love Jesus and my mother, and I'll gladly introduce you to both. I love photography and writing. Duke basketball keeps me occupied for half the year, and hating Chapel Hill keeps me busy the other half. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I like stories. I'm a big guy with a big voice, trying desperately to be heard by someone before The Lord takes me home. Let's be best friends.

Friday, February 3, 2012

This little blog won’t take much of your Friday. There has just been too much happen today to Tweet or Facebook all of it, and I thought a succinct little update on the ol’ blog would be the way to go.

I hope these few things make you laugh as much as they did me.

First things first, I was awoken this morning by a Facebook message from my first and second grade crush. She was seriously one of the two girls in elementary school that I swore I would marry when I got older. I’ve actually blogged about her before, in my post about having accidental scary accuracy. She was the little girl I brained with a rock as she was swinging on the playground so I could show her how much I liked her.

So…she doesn’t remember that happening.

I apologized to her for giving her irreparable brain damage, and we’re working it out.

Also this morning, I walked in on my daughter using the bathroom. The Missus looked at me and said, “The door was closed, that was your own fault.”

We all know about my crippling sense of bathroom shame. I don’t talk about bathroom stuff, I am dead set against open door bathroom stuff, I don’t want to SEE bathroom stuff, and I for dang sure don’t need to walk in on my beautiful young daughter as SHE’S doing her bathroom stuff. I don’t want to walk in on ANYONE doing that. Bathroom time is private time.

I HATE BATHROOM STUFF.

So anyway, after she got out of the bathroom, I said, “Come child. It’s time you learned about shame.” And I proceeded to show her that the bathroom door had a lock, and she should utilize that lock to protect her own privacy as well as the sanctity of my precious memories of her. I will teach these children bathroom shame if it’s the last thing I do.

Another thing I said this morning, to my son, was “That’s not how you use a basketball goal.” To which my wife replied, “That’s how uncle Josh was playing with it last night.” So…shout out to my baby brother (Happy Birthday also) for being the most nonathletic Sloat boy, and passing that down to my son, who I’ve determined will be recruited by Duke and then go to the NBA as one of three successful white point guards since the seventies.

I was also on point on Facebook this morning with the smart-@ss comments, as evidenced in the following picture.

Boom. Roasted.

Then…there is the piece de resistance.

My son was asked to draw a picture for his class yesterday. It was a picture of his family as he saw them. This is what he came up with.

The Sloat Family Portrait

As you can see, he plainly traced around a cantaloupe to draw me, then apparently remembered I have trouble supporting my head on my bulbous body. I also have a goiter and a black hole for a face. Maybe I need to work on yelling less.

His sister is just a mere 35 pounds away from me, a tad shorter, but at least she was given a facial expression and an “X” on her clothing. I think that may stand for the first person he’s planning to knock off. I am pretty sure I should get him in counseling.

Then we move to his self-portrait. I would have to say it’s astonishing to me how accurate it is, minus the pompadour haircut. The torso to legs ratio may be a tad off, but by far it is the most spot-0n drawing in the picture because…

…my lovely wife has a solid red face, green legs, lacks any arms whatsoever, and loves brown tops with green skirts. Also, SHE HAS SPRINGY SHOES. I think this solidifies how my son feels about his mother, in that she’s launched herself to a favorable position as the head of the family by being the highest in the air.

I’m seriously considering having him do artwork for the blog. I could pay him with bags of chips and Capri Sun, and that’s cheaper than most “photographers” out there. “Art by Aven” has a nice ring to it. Here’s to shamelessly selling out my children!

That pretty much rounds out my Friday, and I hope I’ve given you something laugh about until the weekend starts. Turns out, kids are GREAT blogging material. Who knew?

I'm a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. I teach English and Literature to the youth of today. I love Jesus and my mother, and I'll gladly introduce you to both. I love photography and writing. Duke basketball keeps me occupied for half the year, and hating Chapel Hill keeps me busy the other half. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I like stories. I'm a big guy with a big voice, trying desperately to be heard by someone before The Lord takes me home. Let's be best friends.